Can be Bite-y…by Brad Marks

Howdy all! It has been a hectic time as of late, but starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel – granted, Linda frequently tells me to stay away from the bright light in the sky. Fortunately, this one comes from the lightening of the schedule. One more major dog show next week (Canine Performance Dog Nationals) in my hometown of Springfield. After that, home for a good spell so I can go into beast mode training for the daunting 50K in early July. In the bustle we did manage to hold an Intrigued bird outing last week that was quite productive…at the cost of HR berating me about an office full of “Warbler Necks”. More to come on that front. For now I am going to focus on getting packed while Brad takes you to the water’s edge. Quick note, one of the locations mentioned happens to be where a similar encounter left me prematurely grey!

Take it away Brad…

We learned a very valuable birding rule of thumb:  Be very aware of your surroundings.  There can be rocks, uneven ground, water, mud, camera equipment, snakes, holes, birds nesting on the ground, etc.  All of the above can be an inconvenience if encountered, or perhaps even painful.  But none of those can really ruin your day like today’s topic.  Since we encountered this subject all over South Carolina, I’m going to take you to many locations for today’s story.

One of our first stops was Jarvis Creek Park.  It is a very nice park with many hiking paths including a 1-mile paved walking path around the central pond.  The park was full of families picnicking and having fun.  Dogs were pulling their people all around the path.

After about halfway around the pond, Jan came across something that had its eye on the tourists and small critters on leashes.  I was up on the footpath talking with someone walking their dog, a boxer named Oscar if I remember correctly.  Jan walked down the bank by the water to get this photo.

Want to see more spiky creatures (you know you do), hit the jump!

She was able to capture this photo from behind the relative safety of a tree.  An American Alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) was sunning itself.  Alligators are known to be able to travel very quickly in a straight line for several yards.  But their cornering ability is craptastic, so any obstacle that makes them change direction is a good thing to have in their way.  This was the first of many alligators we saw at Jarvis Creek Park.

We visited Sea Pines Forest Preserve on Hilton Head Island early the next morning.  After hiking with our cameras for most of the umpteen miles of trails at Sea Pines, we headed back towards the parking lot.  Jan and I were nearly at the car when there was a very large splash in the water next to us.  A small break in the vegetation gave us this image.

A large alligator had just hauled itself out of the water to sit a handful of feet away from someone’s concrete patio (at the top left of the photo).  Something inside told me we had hiked enough trails by foot, let’s take the car for the rest of Sea Pines.

We left the pedestrian trailhead parking lot for the automobile entrance.  Driving to the far end of the preserve, we found ourselves at Lookout Point where we could . . . are you ready for this . . . look out at the water and the wildlife from an elevated platform.  Once we’d had our fill of photographing Double-crested Cormorants, an Anhinga, and Yellow-bellied Sliders (future stories), Jan and I strolled towards the car.  I put the camera gear in the way-back, then we hopped in to drive to lunch.  But as I pulled out of the parking area, I discovered we were being watched.

Luckily, we were already in the car.  A chill ran up my spine when I realized we had just walked not far from where the alligator was lurking.  It wasn’t there when we walked past a minute ago.  This alligator was only a “little” one, a mere five or six feet long.  Truthfully, I didn’t get close enough for a good measurement.  Pretty creepy for something that dangerous to be able to sneak up on casual hikers in a forest preserve.

That afternoon we took in the Pinckney Island National Wildlife Refuge.  After walking for what seemed forever . . . again (I think this was our 25,554-step day) . . . Jan and I found a nice pond we thought we would walk around.  Rounding a corner at the edge of the pond we were greeted with this:

It was obvious that this alligator had just crawled out of the muck to sun itself because some of the pond muck on its back still looked wet.  However, that was probably the extent of its activity for the day because it was so HUGE!  VW Bug-sized Huge!  In my best Jedi mind-trick voice I said, “We are not the tourists you are looking for,” and we both slowly backed away.

The next day we drove south past Savannah, Georgia to visit Harris Neck National Wildlife Refuge.  Harris Neck is definitely worth the nearly two-hour drive from the Hilton Head area. 

This “newborn” in a corner of Woody Pond was clearly thinking “winner-winner chicken dinner” when it was looking at the Great Blue Heron.

I didn’t even see the little alligator in the background until I reviewed the photos at home.  Jan and I were able to see the much larger alligator sitting on the edge of the pond, a mere few feet from the GBH in the photo.  Neither seemed concerned the other was nearby.

Harris Neck is full of very nice walking and biking trails.  We had planned to circle the entirety of Woody Pond, but this behemoth was blocking the path.

Too close for comfort you say?  Jan took this at the extent of the zoom on her lens.  The alligator was just that big.  You really can’t tell from the photo, but the gator is sitting on the edge of the walking trail.  There wasn’t enough room to safely walk around this obstacle.

Another nature enthusiast drove up and parked next to our car.  He removed his off-road bicycle from the car carrier in hopes of enjoying some of the excellent trails.  The parking area is below the level of the berm, so he didn’t see the alligator until he crested the berm pushing his bike.  I don’t remember the exact expletive he muttered.  I’m pretty sure it sounded like, “Holy S#!T!  That thing’s big.”  Suffice it to say, he and the bike turned around to try a different trail.

Later that afternoon, we travelled to the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge just across the state line back in South Carolina.  This part of Savannah NWR is mostly a drive-thru refuge with plenty of pull-off spots along the multi-mile driving path.  Jan spotted this alligator as we were neared the end of the drive. 

The gravel road between the two ponds was only a few feet above the water line.  This gator was only a couple of feet from the gravel’s edge.  No, I really didn’t zoom in for the photo.  It was really that close.  I have a photo sequence where you can see the tail moving as it’s swimming away silently.  I caught it mid-swish in this photo.  All the while Jan and I were watching the Cretaceous period survivor swim away, there was someone else watching us from the other side of the gravel road.

I’m pretty sure it’s thinking, “Jackpot!  All I have to do is stop that moving box and there are two chicken dinners waiting inside.”  If you look really closely, you can see the reflection of our car in its eyes.

While Jan and I were enjoying the rest of Hilton Head Island, we could never quite let our guard down.  The island is not very far above sea level and full of marshy areas.  One minute we were walking on very nice concrete sidewalks.  The next minute we were on very nice boardwalks over the marshes that were as prevalent as potholes on Illinois roads.  Walking to dinner one night a few blocks from our resort, Jan spotted these two juveniles in a marsh next to the boardwalk.

Thankfully for us, it was February.  Being cold-blooded, alligators need quite a bit of sun to warm up enough to be able to catch pedestrians.  It doesn’t happen often, but it does happen.  While sharks bite more humans than alligators do, alligator attacks are more often fatal.   

Out and about, the most prevalent road sign we saw, outside of stop signs for the miles of bike trails, were the “DO NOT FEED THE ALLIGATORS” signs in both English and Spanish.  That tells you something.

Important Safety Tip:  Do NOT let your pets outside without direct supervision or without being on a leash.  Or both.  Never stake a pet outside.  Oh, and don’t cross the streams—Thanks Egon.

I find it a little ironic that Jan and I took nearly as many photos of alligators as we did of Butterbutts (you all know what Butterbutts are, right?) on this trip.  We certainly didn’t seek out alligators, they were simply everywhere we went.

Thank you for reading.  If you want to see more American Alligator photos from our birding adventures, please visit here.

Credits: Thanks again to Jan and Allyson for proofreading and editing.  Thanks to Jan for many of the photos in this article.

Notes:

While not quite as bitey, this is directly related to today’s topic.  I wanted to throw in one character that made us all do a double-take from a prior visit to Huntington Beach State Park in South Carolina.  It was just past a high spring tide (a bit higher than normal), and the water was still very near the boardwalk height.  A big storm went through a year or so ago and damaged much of the boardwalk and observing platform.  The salvaged portions lost a bit of height it seems.  Knowing alligators were nearby, I didn’t think there was enough clearance between the water and us on the boardwalk.  When I saw this critter swimming nearby, I was understandably anxious.

No, it’s not an alligator.  The fur and ears weren’t immediately obvious in the tall grass.  It is a Raccoon (Procyon lotor).  I had never seen a raccoon swimming before, but the local birders assured me that this raccoon is a regular swimmer in the marsh.

They presumed it had been on one of the small islands and wanted to get to the mainland before the water receded completely, leaving it stranded and surrounded by mud with no escape from the bevy of alligators known to be in the water.  It must have thought there were no alligators around to make the swim.  We did find a nest of little alligators not too far from this location a bit later in the day.